


you were never meant to wear this shadow

by weareallmadeofstardust



Series: when galaxies collide [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batdad, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Clark Kent is probably more responsible than Bruce, Dick Grayson is Adorable, Dick Grayson is Robin, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 04:58:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18771679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weareallmadeofstardust/pseuds/weareallmadeofstardust
Summary: Dick Grayson, growing up.





	you were never meant to wear this shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sarah Kay's poem "Brother" because she's amazing.  
> I was going to wait and post this once the fics for B's other kids were written, but they just weren't working, so I'm posting this one and I'll do the others once they're ready. Each fic is self-contained and can be read separately from the others.

Bruce hadn’t ever actually gone to the circus.

It had never seemed worthwhile, too uninteresting and time-consuming. There was always something more pressing, a case, a gala, a thousand things more important than a circus.

But Alfred had bullied him into taking a night off, he had tickets already, and it seemed as good a distraction as any. The oppressively hot summer was starting to fade, leaving behind warm breezes and pleasant temperatures, and the sky was unusually clear for Gotham. All things considered, it was a perfect day.

It was typical, then, that things went so wrong.

He wished that the evening would be a blur, later. He wished that he couldn’t recall, with perfect clarity, the sound that the wires made when they snapped, the crunch of the bodies hitting the ground, the screaming that filled the air. But it wasn’t blurred- instead, everything was thrown into sharp relief, like it had been burned into his mind.

He could see the boy as he scrambled down from the platform so fast he slipped, sprinting towards his parents. He could see the panic on his face, the way his shoulders shook. He could see the blood that stained his hands.

He could see the aching brokenness, and something in his chest _tugged._

Bruce was moving before he even realized it, shoving aside the people ahead of him and sprinting for the ring. He fell to his knees beside the boy, who was crumpled on the ground, fingers curled into the red-spotted sand and coated in his parents’ blood.

_Bangbangthump-screaming-gunpowderperfumeblood-whyisnoonecoming-_

He scooped up the boy, tucking him against his chest, not caring about the wet warmth that stained his shirt.

“Don’t look at them,” he whispered. “Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look…”

It didn’t fix anything, he knew. It couldn’t bring his parents back. It didn’t make anything okay.

But maybe, just maybe, he could ease the pain.

* * *

The door creaked open.

Bruce’s eyes fluttered open, squinting against the light that poured in from the hallway like liquid. A small shape obscured it for a minute, hesitating, then moved into the room and shut the door softly.

“B?”

“Hmm?” Bruce grunted, shifting so he could see the boy by the faint moonlight. Dick’s fists were clenching and unclenching around the hem of his pajama shirt reflexively, dark hair a mess and tears almost leaking from the corners of his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Dick didn’t answer, just shuffled his bare feet on the floor.

“Nightmares?” he rumbled.

Dick nodded shakily, eyes welling up again. Bruce shifted and lifted up the blankets, and it was all the invitation the boy needed. He burrowed securely against his chest, cocooned in the blankets.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” he asked, voice tiny.

Bruce sighed and pulled him closer. “No.”

Dick barely stifled a sob against his chest. Bruce smoothed back his hair gently.

“It gets easier, though,” he murmured. “And it’s… better, after a while. Once you stop feeling alone.”

Dick hugged him tightly, like he was trying to hold himself together with the force of his grip, and whispered, “I k-keep seeing them fall. Like I-I’m back there, a-and-”

“I know,” Bruce murmured against his head. “I know.”

He let Dick cry against his chest until he couldn’t anymore, shaking with the force of his sobs. Then, once they had subsided to quiet sniffles, he shifted so that Dick was lying on his chest, tucked up against his heartbeat.

“Bruce?” he whispered into the quiet.

“What is it, chum?”

“I love you.”

Bruce couldn’t help smiling as he rumbled, “I love you more.”

Dick’s small fingers curled into his shirt, and before long, he was fast asleep.

* * *

Bruce knew from the rush of wind that Clark had arrived, bypassing the Cave’s security system- he really needed to update that in case of supersonic threat or nosy teammates- but didn’t bother looking up, focusing instead on the case up on the Batcomputer’s screen. 

Finally, Clark got tired of the silence. “Bruce.”

“Clark,” he replied, not turning around.

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“I can’t, seeing as you haven’t told me what I’m supposed to be denying.”

Clark scoffed somewhere over his shoulder, and oh, he was ticked. “You know what,” he said, and something in his voice made Bruce tense.

“I don’t, actually.”

“Don’t screw with me, Bruce.” All of a sudden the man was in front of him, and the anger burning in his eyes made Bruce very glad that he had such impeccable control. “You can’t have seriously thought I wouldn’t find out about _Robin.”_

“He needed a home,” Bruce snarled. “I supplied one. If you’re going to say I shouldn’t have, then I have nothing left to say to you, _Superman.”_

Clark’s jaw clenched. “Don’t put words in my mouth. Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have taken him in. Rao knows you need family. But taking him out? Letting him _fight_ with you? He’s a child!”

Bruce stood, something like rage coursing through him. “Don’t presume to talk about things you don’t understand. You may know me, but you sure as _hell_ don’t know Dick.”

“Then help me understand,” Clark urged, posture softening. “Why? Why would you take a kid as your partner?”

“It was either I teach him or he went out on his own,” Bruce said, sitting down and turning back to the monitor. “Dick… isn’t the type of child to sit idle when he sees something wrong.”

Clark sighed. “I can’t stop you. Just… I don’t want him to turn out like you. Consumed.”

“Believe me,” Bruce said, “that’s the last thing I want.”

* * *

The Batmobile was silent.

Batman gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fists, trying to stop his hands from trembling. Robin was curled up small in the passenger seat, head resting against the window, not looking at him. The silence was thick.

When they pulled into the Batcave, Robin made a beeline straight for the locker rooms. “Robin,” Batman called.

He stopped. “What.”

“You’re benched,” he said flatly. “If I can’t trust you to do as directed, you can’t be in the field.”

“Excuse me?” Robin demanded, whirling around. “Did you spontaneously forget that I stopped the criminals?”

“At the expense of your safety and _against my express orders,”_ Batman snapped. “Had you done as I planned, you would be uninjured and it would have gone far more smoothly.”

“Well, it all worked out!” Robin yelled. “I’m not eight years old anymore, Bruce! I know what I’m doing, you don’t get to baby me all the time!”

“Clearly you don’t,” Bruce snarled. “You took unnecessary risks and endangered both yourself and the hostages. You’re benched. This is not up for discussion.”

Robin looked as if he’d been punched, and not for the first time, Batman wished he could turn back time, steal the words he’d spoken out of the air, because that look was so wrong.

He didn’t know how to make Dick understand the clenching, strangling fear when he threw himself into the line of fire, the terror that came hand in hand with the boy being injured. He wasn’t a little kid anymore, but he was still _his_ kid. What words were there, to say that?

“I’m sorry we can’t all be like you,” Dick said, finally, his voice shaking with either anger or unshed tears. Something heavy settled in Bruce’s stomach. “But I knew what I was doing.”

He turned and walked back towards the locker room, shoulders hunched. “Dick,” Bruce called, but he didn’t look back.

Something sour curled along his tongue as the boy walked away. He vanished without a backward glance, and Bruce just stared after him, guilt sitting heavily in his gut.

* * *

“...and then he was all _Oh, Boy Wonder, where’s Batman?”_

“Hnn,” Bruce said, pulling up a file on the Batcomputer. If he could just find the missing link…

Dick groaned, leaning so far back in his chair that he was nearly horizontal, making the wheels squeak. “I took him down, of course. It was super easy. Hey, are you even listening?”

“Yes,” Bruce grunted. “I can multitask.”

Dick kicked off the floor and spun on his chair, head tipped back. “I’m just tired of everyone seeing Robin as an extension of Batman. You know?”

“Robin is a separate hero,” he said. There had to be some piece he was missing, some piece of information that would solve this case.

“Exactly!” Dick coasted over, grabbing onto the edge of the desk to halt his momentum. “Hawkiss? Wasn’t there a Hawkiss that got caught in the crossfire of some gang case a couple years back?”

Bruce pulled up the file and cursed under his breath. “His brother.”

Dick lifted himself into a handstand on the chair, making Bruce’s heart jolt as it shifted dangerously. “Looks like an amateur. Shouldn’t be too hard to take down.”

“Get down, you’re going to make me go gray,” he ordered. “And he’s desperate. That makes him dangerous.”

“I like how you have a problem with me balancing on wheely chairs but not with jumping off skyscrapers.” Still, Dick slipped off the chair, landing with his feet on the floor.

There was a moment of tense silence, Dick’s fists clenching and unclenching. Bruce just looked up at him and waited.

“I hate being in your shadow all the time,” his son muttered, flopping back into the chair and crossing his arms. “No one sees _me._ They just see _you._ It sucks.”

Bruce turned away from the monitor, meeting his son’s gaze. “Dick.”

“I know it’s stupid!” he burst out. “I mean, it makes _sense,_ it just-”

“Dick,” Bruce interrupted, laying a hand on his knee. “It’s not stupid. And I never intended for you to be in my shadow.”

Dick looked up at him, hair flopping into his face, the look in his eyes making him seem younger than he was. “I know,” he said, resting his hand on Bruce’s. “Thanks, B.”

Bruce brushed his son’s hair out of his eyes gently, and Dick smiled. They stayed there for a while, just the two of them, and Bruce wondered how anyone could see Dick as his shadow when he seemed to exude light.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcomed and appreciated!


End file.
